


By Rote

by sowell



Category: D.Gray-man
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-26
Updated: 2013-05-26
Packaged: 2017-12-13 00:17:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/817724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sowell/pseuds/sowell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The life of an exorcist is like this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	By Rote

The life of an exorcist is like this:  
  
Battles in fast forward, crimson clashes of violence and pain never properly remembered later. Endless journeys. Pointless missions. Nightmares of the Earl, resplendent in circus colors and glistening entrails. Blood-stained black uniforms and the weight of a sword and Allen Walker’s wide eyes, pale and blue under the darkening sky.  
  
They fuck on trains, on peeling leather seats and over dingy restroom sinks and up against the cold glass windows. The Order is too crowded, the battlefield is too bloody. It is these between-times when Kanda will look out of the corner of his eyes and twist his mouth, and Allen will come, head bowed and willing, fists clenched and eyes sparking fire.  
  
“Stupid,” Kanda says, fingering a new cut across Allen’s chest, the product of a razor-yielding level two and Allen’s momentary distraction. “So stupid. You might as well have asked it to kill you.”  
  
“Shut up,” Allen says stiffly. “If you’re going to insult me I’d rather put my clothes back on.”  
  
Which is a lie; Allen’s skin is cold but his body is tense, his slim fingers leaving dents in Kanda’s shoulders. Kanda shifts. His head lowers, and Allen’s legs draw up closer to his body, and they both shudder when Kanda’s erection starts to probe at Allen’s entrance.  
  
“Useless,” Kanda mutters. “The most useless excuse for an exorcist I’ve ever…” His voice is muffled in Allen’s neck, gentle in spite of himself. He likes these encounters when they’re fast and rough – an affirmation of life after a close call, a release of tension after too much time in close quarters. He does not like…this. Conversation is bad, caresses are worse. So he peels his mouth from Allen’s skin and thrusts, and Allen chokes back a cry.  
  
Marie knows, he thinks. And maybe Komui. Komui always knows more than he lets on. Lavi is clueless and Lenalee is more so, and everyone else in the world can mind their own fucking business as far as Kanda is concerned. But Lenalee would get scandalized and Lavi would probably want to watch, and right now Kanda needs  _this_. This secret time where he pulls on Allen Walker’s hair and licks at his white skin and they can struggle, struggle, struggle against each other and the akuma and the whole damn world for a while.  
  
They’ve only done it once in the Order. One mistake, and they don’t talk about it. One time when Kanda walked into the training room to see Allen already there, beating the shit out of the north wall, tears on his face, blood dripping from his knuckles. Kanda hadn’t known the finder ( _Peter was his name. He had a brother in the North American branch and was engaged to one of the scientists. He’d been thirty-two years old._ ), only that he’d died under the beansprout’s watch. He’d died doing his job. It was a stupid thing to cry over, and Kanda told him so.  
  
And Kanda knew Allen Walker had a temper, but it usually manifested itself in that deep cold rage he’d observed on the battlefield – against the Earl, against the Noah, against injustice and cruelty and pain. He expected Allen to stiffen his shoulders, to say something defensive, or maybe something admonishing, to straighten his shoulders and walk away.  
  
He did not expect Allen to activate his innocence.  
  
If it weren’t for his reflexes, he’d have gotten a sword through the gut. As it was, it took him almost ten minutes to pin the screaming mass of fury that had once been Allen Walker.  
  
And when the boy’s eyes had finally cleared he’d shuddered, and then he’d cried some more, and then Kanda had rolled him over and made him moan instead.  
  
The thing Kanda will not admit, even to himself, is:  
  
He’s scared. Because sometimes he wakes from dozing and Allen Walker’s eyes look nothing like a boy’s or an angel’s or an exorcists’. Sometimes they look right through Kanda, chill and flinty in a way Kanda tries not to recognize.  
  
Kanda reports these times to Komui, stilted and tense in the flickering lights of the supervisor’s office. Komui keeps still and says nothing, eyes hidden in the sheen of his glasses.  
  
Allen Walker is an idiot, a moron, a naïve, dim-witted bleeding heart who has no place in the middle of an apocalyptic battle. His shoulders are too narrow for the burden that Cross has given him, for the bloody missions Komui sends him out to, for the hope and trust and bright optimism that Lavi and Lenalee place in him.  
  
Kanda can understand this, because unlike everyone else, Kanda is not blinded by his quiet smile and rote words of encouragement. Kanda has seen his despair and sorrow, his anger and violence spilling out in molten waves on the battlefield. Kanda has shared his desperation when he’s inside the boy, the familiar panic that time is running out, that they are not doing enough, that they’ve never had a chance from the beginning.  
  
Allen Walker will crack, and Kanda does not want to see it.   
  
The flowers dance in the corner of his vision, shedding colors like rippling water. Kanda keeps moving forward, the mark on his chest keeps expanding, and Allen learns to swallow his cock whole, mouth round and throat relaxed and fingers digging into the worn train bench. Mugen does not leave his side, not even for an instant, and the outrageous color of Allen’s arm is a reminder that these moments are brief, stolen encounters to keep them sane, or maybe drive them just insane enough to keep fighting a hopeless war.  
  
Allen Walker is:  
  
Well. None of them know that, in the end.


End file.
